The Knicks host the shitty Hornets, who are playing without their best player, in the final game of the group stage of the NBA In-Season Tournament. If the Knicks win by enough points, they’ll lock in a Wild Card spot in the In-Season Tournament. The ironic thing about that, of course, is that it means that the Knicks will have to face better teams in the next round of the tournament than if they just missed out on the second round.
But hey, it’s always nice to win things, I guess.
In any event, as noted, the Hornets suck and LaMelo Ball is out (he just barely avoided re-breaking the ankle he broke last year, and, well, come on, that is very ominous for his career, right?), so this better be an easy Knick win.
You and me, on the way to 53!
Let’s go, Knicks!
153 replies on “2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Hornets (In-Season Tournament Finale Opener, kind of a thing)”
One interesting thing about this in season tournament is that because point differential counts, very superior teams are more likely to run up the score.
That has gambling implications.
Usually, when there’s a large mismatch, the line doesn’t fully reflect the difference between the two teams. It’s expected that the superior team will either pull their starters late or not play all out and the final score will not reflect the difference. Right now, since they ARE more likely to run up the score, the lines should be larger.
But Cuban retains control of the team in the sale, so it’s not really a major thing, all said and done. Just a few more billions for him.
I think Mavs fans would have been better off if he handed control of the basketball operations to someone else and kept his stake in the team. 😉
If Miriam Adelson now has less money to spend on politics this is the most magnanimous thing Mark Cuban has ever done
Yeah, but she’s probably better at team building than Cuban. So that’s bad for the Knicks if she has any input. 😉
Grimes is hard to watch these days
Interesting tweet that I believe was about Doncic…not that I’ve been saying the same thing for years.
Cool me down, I’ve got IST fever.
It’s the Hornets but god damn it I’ll accept any and all positive signs from Randle
Nice ball movement on that RJ 3.
There must be some kind of statkeeping glitch, Randle’s FGM is more than half of his FGA…
Good Julius, is that you?
Brunson hasn’t taken a shot yet.
Heyyyyy, good Julius.
Whattt…. rhymes with Julius?
Brunson and Grimes haven’t attempted a shot
Bench both of those bums (-:
Someone snuck some Good Julius Juice into his pre-game chamomile tea…
Nice ball movement on that Grimes 3.
Randle with the matador D. smh
I fully support Mitch trying to get into his bag against this team
We can hit threes it appears
Mitch thinks he’s Kyrie. lmao
Can we put Mitch in the skills challenge this All-Star weekend, just for funsies?
That Mitch between-his-legs drive to a turnover still has a smile on my face.
Love Mitch but he’s not exactly Ewing in the post, or even Eddy Curry.
Seems like any time we get a big lead we get loosey-goosey and our shot selection goes to hell…
“That Mitch between-his-legs drive to a turnover still has a smile on my face.”
In a special olympics sort of way, right?
If Josh Hart is a bit frustrated with his role this year because he spends some minutes at PF just standing in the corner like Obi used to, maybe that’s another good reason for us to get a backup PF and consolidate the logjam we created at SG/SF by adding DDV.
Knicks bench letting the Hornets back in the game.
Nice, RJ!
Pour it on, boys.
Randle never disappoints to disappoint…
Randle with his required 3 turnovers in the first half
I didn’t think Hayward could still dunk. 🙂
15-9-3 (turnovers) in the first half…
RJ Harden
Miami is still managing to play the Bucks tough even without Butler. SPO is a magician.
Who’s supposed to be guarding Miller. Cuz whoever it is, isn’t.
Oh, right, Julius.
Knicks continuing their annoying trend of getting a big lead then immediately stop defending the 3pt line.
RJ is 2-8 but he’s got 13 pts at the half because he’s 8-8 from the line…
Can an entire team be injury prone? Charlotte is so much better than their record, but they never have a full squad. They are always missing a couple of key pieces due to injury or in Bridges’ case being a criminal.
They have a nice young core to work with going forward if they can just stay out of the hospital and jail.
I know our defense is partly contingent on leaving the right guys open for 3. I don’t think Eric Gordon or Brandon Miller are the right guys…
Baby steps. It looks like the improved FT shooting is probably legit. Maybe he won’t sustain this FT%, but he’s better.
RJ is getting to the point where you buy a shooting improvement. He probably won’t shoot 40% from 3 the whole year or hit 84% of his FTs, but there’s been some real improvement.
The NBA should probably figure out the whole “you get a harder schedule for doing well” thing considering how close the standings always are
Boston running up the score, might push us for the wildcard spot
Re: FTs – someone needs to have Mitch try this: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/nba-stars-fix-your-free-throws-with-one-easy-trick/ar-AA1kBazY
You should get extra credit for playoff tiebreakers and seeding if you wind up with the tougher Cup schedule. That’s one idea, anyway.
RJ and Mitch are playing anti-matter versions of each other. Barrett is like, “Want the ball? Here it is…” while Mitch is like, “Give me the ball, punk.”
Fuck sakes.
This is fucking embarrassing.
Shorthanded teams love playing at MSG
Mitch and Brunson GOOOOOOD!!
RJ, Randle and Grimes BAAAAAAD!!
I was just admiring the pretty girl talking with some of the guys on the Charlotte sidelines, and then I realized it was Frank…
Uh oh. Potential for an a third quarter of doom here. Let’s see if JB can right the ship.
Good closeout Randle. It’s pathetic. I don’t care what the boxscore says, trading Randle should be a high priority for multiple reasons. He gives away as much with his ball holding, TOs and lazy defense as he adds elsewhere…and so far this year where he usually adds he’s been subtracting.
Randle’s defense igniting the Knicks!
Did Randle just steal the ball twice?
Perimeter defense seems uh lacking
Your friendly reminder that the Hornets are the 30th ranked defense in the NBA
Yeah just stop passing the ball to Mitch.
Ball don’t lie
Quickley’s defense there was bad-Ish
Hart is the best shooter among all players I’ve ever seen who are terrified to shoot
This is more like it.
My kingdom for a well executed 2-for-1 opportunity.
I am trying really hard to stick to my guns that the IST is stupid and that I shouldn’t care.
Bench mob rescues us from Q3 of Doom!
The Knicks are up 14 and RJ is 2 for 12 and a minus 4. He’s the only minus player on the team. We are back to normal.
Might be Hart’s best game of the season
Uggh. I kind of hope we don’t go to Vegas even though I definitely want to win this game.
Last season Hart is back!
We’re not playing that well but because Hornets we can still win by 25 and clinch a spot
Ahh there we go, there’s that 30th ranked defense
I really wanna hate that Amazon commercial but it is kinda sweet
The Josh Hart I remember
I think barring a collapse the Knicks will make it into the tournament. The Celts will likely overtake the Magic, so their target is a 4-point lead this game given the other scores.
Heat-Bucks is close so they have a shot at winning the group if they win by 20 or more.
Eh, I wanna go to Vegas. It’s a thing the New York Knicks can conceivably win. I was 4 years-old last time we were in the finals.
I believe the Celts need the Nets to win otherwise they lose to Orlando on head-to-head tiebreak.
If Nets win, Celts take the 3-way tie and the group on their point differential and Orlando’s +22 would be the mark Knicks need to beat
Damn, I didn’t realize that head-to-head came before point differential for ties. Thanks.
Mitch!
This is great, Celtics keeping their starters in and doing hack a Drummond with a 30+ pt lead.
Nasty Mitch!!!
We suck at alley oops
Charlotte bench better than Knicks starters.
IQ is loving the pt differential rule.
Not sure if running up the score is a good thing for the NBA
Maybe a little too much. 🙂
I should have listened to myself.
I’m sold on the IST now. This is fun, and I’m happy for Thibs–for once in his life he can play his starters 40 minutes against the Charlotte Hornets and not have to answer to anyone about it.
I sure as hell hope no starter gets injured in these garbage time minutes for a stupid, meaningless tourney.
We should safely beat out the Celtics, so we either host the Bucks if Miami wins or go to Milwaukee if they win.
If anyone is going to Vegas to watch the game…let me know…short flight from Oakland for me…I’m up for it…my wife…not so much
So our prize for making the tournament knock out round is another game against Milwaukee? The is like a sneak version of the NFL’s parity system where good teams get a tougher schedule the next season. I’m sure NBA management doesn’t mind that and may even have thought about it, but it’s a bad side effect of the Knicks being a good team.
WE WANT THE CUP
I enjoyed it. It’s kind of like a Leon Rose Hybrid.
Drives smoother than you expect.
🙂
Knicks are going to Milwaukee or hosting Boston, either scenario sucks.
“So our prize for making the tournament knock out round is another game against Milwaukee?”
I think the League will just reshuffle the other regular season games to ensure no extra game against one opponent over the other, but I’m not 100% sure.
I was 100% in on the tournament from the start and I’m glad it’s been fun to watch so far with the players and coaches buying in. I don’t care if the cup itself has no meaning, this game was a lot more fun than any November home game against the Hornets without LaMelo had any right to be. Seeing the Celtics hack Drummond late game to keep their advantage too. I wouldn’t be watching so many games today if those were just random regular season games, that’s for sure.
The Celts are out? That’s fine by me!
Well…I guess that makes the appearance in vegas a long shot
No Z-Man they actually won their group.
The Celtics won their group so i don’t think we can play them in the first round? I think we either go to Milwaukee or host Milwaukee…but I am far from sure.
I am sure I want the cup tho
If Heat beat the Bucks the Knicks will host Boston!
We have a better point differential than the Bucka at the moment so if Miami wins, we win the group, I can’t believe I’m actually rooting for the Heat in a damn game.
“I think the League will just reshuffle the other regular season games to ensure no extra game against one opponent over the other, but I’m not 100% sure.”
In B-R there are only 80 games on the schedule. So no games are subtracted, we just play MIL 4 times instead of 3. Per Sportico:
To ensure that every team plays exactly 82 regular-season games, the 22 teams that do not qualify for the knockout round will play two additional regular-season games on Dec. 6 and Dec. 8. The four teams that lose in the quarterfinals of the tournament will play one additional regular-season game on Dec. 8 against the opponent from the same conference.
And the finals of the IST mean that two teams will play 83 games, but the finals game does not count in the standings.
Oops, sorry! I guess the Celts are in…
Celtics have officially won their group, already been announced.
Celtics won their group because the Nets won against the Magic. That means all 3 teams are tied at 3-1 and are in a 3 way tie with each being 1-1 against the other 2, so it goes to the second criteria which is point differential, so Celtics win the group, Magic and Nets are eliminated.
So we do end up playing an extra game against a tougher team, oh well, I still love it, at least it will be a hype game.
Pretty good Final 4 in the East, the best 3 teams in the Conference plus Indiana…
“In B-R there are only 80 games on the schedule. So no games are subtracted, we just play MIL 4 times instead of 3.”
Make that 5 times instead of 4…that kinda sucks…
On a side note Knicks are up to 5th in East standings with a home game vs Detroit up next.
I suppose it’s a good PR thing to make the inaugural final 8 of this tournament, but playing the Bucks 5 times could have a significant impact on seeding at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, the Bulls are a fucking disgrace. That they just rolled over for the Celts like they did is just shameful.
The Bulls did not hybrid good
Obviously, we just need to win the game against MIL. Problem solved.
“The Bulls did not hybrid good”
I don’t think there’s a name for what they did.
LaVine was so checked out in their game against the Celtics that he had to be intentionally tanking his trade value, but who the fuck would trade for and extend him when he’s been so ass? (Please not the Knicks I’m fully out on him)
Surprised the Bulls can’t win 47 games and make the 2nd rd of the playoffs since every team can do it if they really wanted to.
Donte played like ass. 2-8 for 6pts, 0 assists, and 2TOs with one of his 3s in the last 30 seconds of the game.
Brunson with a 13.9% usage. You don’t see that every day.
Was just watching the end of Rockets vs. Mavs. Was wondering why Dallas’s court wasn’t in the in-season tournament style. Apparently there were manufacturing issues, and it wasn’t ready in time.
This tournment is great for teams like NY and Indiana. Teams that lack deep playoff experience when intensity and pressure are both heightened. This provides valuable experience where every game is a game 7 elimination game. Hope Randle shows up big and puts his playoff jitters behind. Same with Quickly.
I had to watch this one on delay.
The game just ended for me and I surprised myself by rooting for the Knicks to pour it on and cheering silently when I saw they were the wild card. There’s no rational reason to cheer for the Knicks to have made it into the tournament. They now have to play some really good and hot teams. Overall, does it hurt them at the end of the season?
Wow, amazing loss by the Warriors. Up 5 with Sacramento in intentional-foul-to-stop-the-clock mode, Curry passes it right to Monk who hits a 3. Then Draymond passes it to an unguarded Kings fan in the 1st row and Monk proceeds to hit a game winning “please go in” leaner/something-or-other.
It will be fitting if the one thing the Sacramento Kings win in their entire nba existence as a franchise is the universally ignored IST cup.
The stakes were obviously lower, but watching that gave me flashbacks to Reggie scoring 8 points in 7 seconds to steal Game 1 in ‘95. It was so in the can, then disaster struck.
Definitely all in on the IST.
I am confused, though… are we playing the bucks in Milwaukee or Vegas?
EDIT: we play them at Milwaukee. Vegas is just for the final 4.
I would prefer if the whole knockout tournament was in Vegas. That way you could have had four East v West matchups in round 1, which would probably generate more buzz.
Knicks v Lakers in Vegas, for instance, is a lot more exciting than Knicks going back to Milwaukee to replay a game from three weeks ago.
Yeah, I agree that they should have made the entire knockout rounds in Vegas, but I guess the NBA wanted to reward the best teams in the group with at least one home game, which makes sense.
Really cool that either the Pelicans or Kings will be in the west finals, two young and hungry teams.
Edmond Sumner just signed with Euroleague club Zalgiris Kaunas.
His NBA career may be over but the Sumner Award will live forever.
I have to say, if this is the first ever IST, it bodes well for the future. It’s probably only going to get better when they make adjustments.
I was a heavy skeptic going into it, but I have been converted.
Some adjustments that would make sense… I think it was gkhenman who suggested using the existing divisions as groups… I like that idea very much… it also enables a seamless extension of the group stage… you can easily double the group stage to 8 games, home and away vs each team, if you’re using existing divisions since those teams play each other more anyway… and as mentioned above, put the whole tournament in Vegas and set up East v West teams in the first round.
Lots of ways to tinker. But it’s pretty good as it is. The last two games we were involved in had me glued to the tv.
The big thing to me is that the players really seem to have bought into the idea of distributing the prize money to the end of bench guys and assistant coaches. Like the mic’ed up segment with Barrett and Randle yesterday with RJ saying they needed to run up the score, then Randle agreeing in the post game interview.
If the stars buy in and play harder in those games for whatever reason, be it just competitiveness or team spirit, no matter what you think about the validity of the tournament, the fans are already getting a better product than the regular season games that were replaced.
the divisional layout would actually work best but i think they’re trying to make soup out of the day old halibut… and so trying to get more tickets/ratings for knicks/hornets rather than knicks/celts would be better… but actually also dilutes your product… you should be trying to sell it first and then try to make money off of it later…
they do need more marquee matchups but i guess they think they’re going to get that from the knockout rounds…
playing for point differential has always been an awkward thing… especially in soccer… it’s very 4th wall breaking but maybe i’m a basketball purist… you should be playing the team in front of you and not some out of town scoreboard…. but different strokes for folks…
Oh yeah.
Again won’t go into details but more confirmation this morning that many/all of the pro scribes read Knickerblogger.
My two cent suggestions:
– Reduce the regular season to 74 games.
– Make the IST Qualifying Round home & away so the owner don’t lose their gate dollars (hey, 8 games is just what we took away from the RS! What a genius!).
– Give money prizes for every win.
For instance in the UEFA Champions League Qualifying Round a team get 2.2 millions euros for every win, and half of that for every tie.
The NBA could give the money to the players/coaches instead of teams.
– Play all the “Final 8” games in Vegas, in one full week.
– Optional: use Divisions for Qualifying Round Groups to ease traveling issues.
The problem with divisional grouping is that you play the same 4 teams every year and the teams that make it are going to look awfully familiar on a year-to-year basis.
Or God forbid you’re stuck in OKC’s conference, well, good luck for the next decade.
Watching our starters run up the score against their end-of-the-bench guys in extended garbage time made me puke*… and it probably means I’m a basketball purist too 😀
* The Celtics with the hack-a-Drummond did worse…
I agree, personally I’d rather have mixed group to avoid playing the same games over and over.
I will continue to be a detractor until I see it play out.
First, I don’t like that these games count in the standings vs. playoff positioning…for example, if we lose to MIL on the road, if that substitutes for a home game against a creampuff, that can bump us from 4th to 5th (home court vs. non-home court) or worse, 6th to 7th (playoffs vs. play-in). This needs to be corrected in some way, for example, participants in the knockout round are credited in the standings in some way no matter what the outcome of those games, I dunno, maybe with a tiebreaker implication of sorts.
I also wonder what the reaction will be if a star player gets seriously injured in the final game, which has no bearing on the teams final record. Sure, a player can get injured in any game or practice, but assuming that this game is played with playoff intensity, that would be a worry of mine if the Knicks made it that far. It would kind of be analogous to an all-star game, and the main reason why guys just go through the motions in those games seems to be injury avoidance in an exhibition.
So for all the excitement it generates, I really don’t give much of a damn about winning it, my hope is that we get through it in one piece, and without detriment to our playoff seeding.
Setting aside the players making extra money (which at best no fan should care about and at worst means fans are going to pay more to see these games), anything that has the Knicks playing the Bucks on the road an extra time as the reward for doing well is dumber than a pile of rocks.
I’m not sure how to incentivize winning in the IST in a way that’s consistent with trying to make the playoffs and getting favorable positioning at the end of the season, but the reward should benefit the team (and fans rooting for them) and not simply allow a player to buy an extra 50k watch or make it rain in a topless club in Vegas.
legitimately jealous of what seems like the overwhelming majority of nba superstans
and journalists really enjoying the ist, even many who were initially skeptical. might be the only fan on the planet who prefers non ist days.
yea but these 4 games would happen if it was part of the ist or not…. trying to predict what people would get tired of for an idea that might not even exist next year is putting the cart before the horse.. if you want people to care about it you need to put matchups that people care about…. but expecting these boston/detroit… knicks/hornets.. matchups to drum up excitement for the tourney…. is not it..
if all they care about is marginal improvement.. then maybe ok… but since they’re packaging these games separately they want it to be valuable and the divisional matchups are the most valuable matchups… doesn’t make sense to save that for a time when the idea might be dead…
the ncaa has rivalry week which kind of sort of kicks of conf play…. this would just be something similar…
Please do tell. I don’t read any of the other stuff so I’ll never find out on my own.
i honestly don’t see anyone being excited for it… irl or social media… the only thing i see anyone talking about it are how good/bad the courts are or confusion over the format….
Did anyone notice players slipping on the court last night more than usual? Might have been just the power of suggestion, having heard from some players in other venues that the IST courts were slippery…
You raise a good point.
As a result of making the knockout round, the Knicks drew a game at Milwaukee their 82nd opponent will now be either Boston or Indiana.
The Magic got Detroit away and home vs Cleveland.
Philadelphia got a home game vs Atlanta and a road game in Washington.
Miami drew Toronto and Cleveland.
It’s not fair.
I don’t really care, though, because I want the MFing cup!
I’d say that Curry and Green agree with you and were thinking about April during the final few seconds of their game last night. That would explain a lot. But it turned out they needed to win by 12 to move on. Maybe it’s all just too complicated for everybody to follow, even the players, who can’t figure out how to properly game the system in the heat of the moment?
I’m against the IST from the start of the conversation about it years ago (fuck Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe).
But, just like I’ve made peace with other basketball things (often Knicks related), I’ve accepted that it’s not going anywhere, the way the League and media are pumping it shows the Silver Cup is here to stay.
My only gripe now is that if you want to do it at all cost, at least do it in the best possible way, and instead the “1 game for 2 competitions” concept is bad enough for me to hate it to death, and “be rewarded playing stronger teams in RS games” is just as stupid.
I understand Ptmilo’s envy for who enjoys the Cup, because I just can’t.
Material on here shows up in the papers/websites, in essentially unchanged form. I’ve seen it at least three times.
The absolute bare minimum that should be done is that a KO round qualifier automatically wins any seeding tiebreaker against a non-KO round follower. So the Knicks should automatically win a tie-breaker against the Magic, full stop no questions asked.
Frankly, the Knicks should win tiebreakers even if the Magic finish a game ahead, i.e., the Knicks should get a “free win,” so if they finish 47-35 and the Magic finish 48-34, the Knicks get a better seed. Would add even additional incentive for the Cup tourney.
Unlikely to happen, but it should.
Makes the scheduling tougher most likely, but they should also seed the field and do a televised draw for the groups sometime in maybe September.
Well, in the AP review of Alan’s book yesterday, they discussed the merits of the hybrid approach as it pertained to killing off Marisa, a member of the Core Four. Apparently there was a lot of internal debate about whether the producers could get replacement value for her via the draft.
Also, I read in Soap Opera Digest rumors that Hubert finally has his shit together.
The Bucks are obviously good and have Giannis & Dame, but they also can’t play defense. It’s one game, a little shooting luck and we can win.
The winner of the IST gets to pick one quarter during the playoffs in any series (just one) where every 2 point basket is worth 3 and every 3 point basket is worth 4. They also get one extra foul shot when they’re fouled for that quarter.
Or the winner gets to pick one quarter in the playoffs where they can choose one player on the floor for the opposing team who has to wear an eye patch over one eye while they play. If the coach subs out that player, they can pick another player who now has to wear the eye patch.
Yeah I’m kind of immune to the charms of the IST. It’s fine, I’m not gonna be too much of a curmudgeon about it, but I don’t find these games any more exciting at all, and I agree with those here who are correctly observing that these games could have negative seeding implications and also bring increased injury risk.
I guess they’re doing this every year from now on? Meh.
Posted a new thread to save on the thumbs…
Lies!
They definitely need to do something about the reward for success being a tougher schedule. There are plenty of options in that regard that should be easy enough.
Besides that though, I think it’s been a real success so far. You have to remember that to casual fans the pre-Christmas NBA is basically spring training. The IST has already managed to provide some extra intrigue and we haven’t even hit the knockout stage yet.
I mean, anything that makes players take the regular season more seriously is good. I had no problem with guys trying to win by 30 instead of 25 last night–the NBA should strive to put on a good product for 48 minutes a night. This is why I also support a complete decoupling of record and draft position. We should have a system that incentivizes as much high-quality basketball as possible.